National Reservoir Level and Capacity Monitoring System
E GOVERNANCE CASE STUDY (BSCCSIT/BCA/MASTERS)
Water is a prime natural resource, a basic human and a precious national asset, and hence planning and development of water resources need to be governed by national perspectives. The National Water Policy (1987) has addressed the issue related to develop, conserve, utilize and manage this important natural resource in this new millennium. The Hashim Committee Report (1999) dealt with "Integrated Water Resources Development Plan" warrants timely action in respect of (i) harnessing of the surface flows through major, medium and minor storage, (ii) improving water-use efficiency to the optimum levels, and (iii) taking necessary steps for demand and supply management. Emergence of Information Technology on the national agenda and the announcement of IT policies by various Stage Governments have recognized the "Convergence of Core Technologies and E-Governance" as a tool for sustainable development in water resources.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) applications in water resources development and management in India are being given adequate attention during theTenth Plan, facilitating deployment of Decision Support System (DSS) of various levels of planning and management of water resources of the country. Evolved in this direction is "Reservoir Level and Storage Capacity Monitoring" – A segment of e-Governance in water resources. This is a network-centric application and has a significant importance in evaluation of water utilization, crop production and estimation, hydropower generation, of states/national level under uniform protocol of communication among stage and centre. The parameter could be an early warning indicator to the crop production and hydel power generation of the country. Any significant deviation from the norms could attract attention of the planners and administrators.
National Information Centre (NIC) has been providing support since 1988 to CWC for monitoring 70 reservoirs with the total storage capacity of 135 TMCM comprising 78% of the total available storage, supporting CCA of the order of 11,534 Th. Ha., hydel power capacity of 8617 MW and covering the reservoir, spreads in more than 14 states and 12 major river basins.
National/State Model
With the current available technology of Internet and GUI environment, it has become possible under Java and SQL Server environment (Web-enabled application) to evolve a new version State/National Model to provide support to the State Government, CWC, MOWR and Planning Commission with complete distributed administrative and management control. The information thus collected from the various States can be published (with the concurrence of officials concerned) on the Internet for general viewing of the various departments of Central and Stage Governments, the Planning Commission and the concerned farmers (Clients), within the prevailing restricted structure of communication. Important Features
Let us now review the important features of this model.
Users and Privileges. Only authorized user can assess the system. The users of the system have been classified into three categories as follows:
(i) Super user [CWC user]: Has privilege to access all the reservoirs in India and also have permission to access Admin module for creating user and creating reservoir, i.e. complete administrative control.
(ii) State user: Has privilege to access all the reservoirs of their particular state and also permission to create and modify user of reserve level user.
(iii) Reservoir Level User: Has a right to access the particular reservoir for data entry, query and reports of concerned reservoir.
Login procedure
The reservoir level and capacity monitoring system could be assessed through a browser to access the "National User Interface".
National Level User Interface
The application software recognize each of the users allocated, its privileges and security aspects, and hence provides access at National/CWC level, State level, and at Reservoir level, and projects the respective interface of application area to the concerned user. The format of the "National Level User Interface" is same as the Super User (CWC) shown above.
i. Data Entry: User can feed the data on the basis of their privileges ● Super user can feed data of any reservoir in India.
● State user can feed data of all reservoirs in the particular state. ● Reservoir user can feed data of a particular reservoir.
ii. Query. Different kinds of queries for National/State Level as per their privilege include
● Data entry of a particular reservoir
● Data of a particular reservoir on the basis of data
● Particular data of all reservoirs.
● Query about users' privileges
● General query about salient features of a particular reservoir.
iii. Administration. The module provides complete administrative control at the national level as well as the state level, for their respective regions as per the privileges defined. Following are the options available:
● Add user
● Delete/Update User
● Add Reservoir
● Delete /Update Reservoir
● Add Basin Information
● Delete/Update Basin Information
iv. Reports. Reports are available under uniform protocol of communication and reporting under NICNET/Internet, for Basin/National State level as per their privileges, reflecting, current year/preceding year and last 10 year average performance.
v. Graphical Report. Capacity versus date graph in near real-time environment for stage/national level as per their privileges.
Conclusion
In this case study we have seen how a critical resources as water level (in various rivers in the country) can be monitored, with the help of a specialized software, at various levels.